


Mask

by wonderfulmax90



Category: Original Work
Genre: Horror, Mask, Other, Psychological Horror, horror prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22078435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderfulmax90/pseuds/wonderfulmax90
Summary: A prompt based on the characters in my Hope series.
Kudos: 1





	Mask

At first, I always thought that I was the only one wearing a mask. The only one with a life to hide. The only one who had secrets to keep. It all feels so insignificant now. It feels like there was so much more than what I had ever felt. The secrets meant to be kept were now what some people had called insignificant. Those who had known me called the mask that I wore nothing more than performance art. Though their own mask cracked every time they told me to take off my own. They were scared of what I was going to do if I let the persona that I had so carefully built drop. Either way, I was no longer meant to be myself. I wasn’t even meant to be myself around myself anymore.   
“What are you doing?”  
The gruff voice snapped me out of my own thoughts. The man in the room smiled back at me. Light blue eyes threatening to chill the soul I didn’t think I had anymore. His smile told a different story though. His smile was a lot warmer than what his eyes lead me to believe. His voice was soft and filled with the Brummie accent I had grown to love.   
“Nothing,” I sighed as I rubbed my temples. White dots filled my vision for a moment before the man became clearer once more. “I’m fine.”  
“I didn’t ask if you were okay.”  
“Natural reaction. Everyone has been asking if I’m okay lately.”  
The man raised an eyebrow before waving me off. He just sat back in the chair that he sat in while I laid on the couch. Weekly therapy session. One that had been court-ordered to keep me out of jail. Though, we never ended up talking about much. I just started off into space most of the time and he had accepted that. We never really spoke a few words to each other but today we had spoken more than we had in a few weeks. The most being when we met each other and he asked why I was really coming to see him.   
“Why would they be asking that?”  
“I’m about to go testify against my brother.”  
“James?”  
“Yeah,” I paused and turned my head back so that my eyes could face the ceiling and so that they wouldn’t betray me. “James. He’s supposed to be facing life.”  
“Do you want him to go away for life?”  
“Obviously not,” Tears threatened to spill out of my eyes but I wiped them away before I could even let them fall. “No one wants their brother to go to jail for life.”   
“And you were the one that escaped?”  
“I guess,” I whispered. “I would have been better off in jail if I had my way with how the sentence was carried out.”  
“The judge had mercy on you, didn’t he?”  
“I wish he hadn’t.”  
“Why?”  
“Because I never wanted to come to therapy. I’m only coming because I’m forced to. I would have never come here if it weren’t for the court mandate.”  
“I don’t believe that.”  
“Why?”  
“Because you have issues. Especially with authority. Someone in your past who you trusted, wasn’t that nice to you.”  
My heart twisted in my chest. Somehow he had hit the nail on the head. Tears threatened to spill out of my eyes once more. Not by my own choice either. The tears stung worse as soon as they hit my cheeks though. A man I barely knew was now seeing me cry. A man I had spent half a year with and never spoke more than twenty words to until today was now seeing me cry. I turned my head back to him. He had already grabbed the tissues off of his desk and extended it to me. I took a tissue and just covered my face with it.   
“So I was right,” My therapist sighed, his voice wet with his own unspilled tears. It was always hard to keep a straight face when someone else cried. Even I had done it before. “Sometimes I hate being right.”   
“I haven’t told you anything,” The tears gone as soon as they had started up. “This might have been nothing.”  
“Drop the mask, Noah,” My therapist was suddenly stern with me. “I know there was someone you trusted with all your heart and soul that broke that trust. Who was it?”  
I paused and considered how stern his voice was. Like a dad chastising his kid for being out past sunset. I bit my lip before turning back to him. A smile was on his face even though he was waiting for my own response. The man had leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. His right hand came up and covered his mouth.   
“More like more than one person. My parents,” My therapist perked up as if he had just found $20 on the ground. “My mom...she was the drug addict of the family. Blew her brains out right in front of me. I was only five at the time. She blew through my dad’s money faster than he could make it. Heroin mostly. She tired a few times to whore herself out. Though it never worked. She was a loud ass fucker who didn’t know when to be quiet. Got in trouble with the police a few times for noise complaints. That was the least worse thing on her rap sheet. You know, I had to hold her as she bled out that night. But my dad used to beat me but he left before my mom killed herself. Left me and my sister all alone to fend for ourselves but my sister left as soon as she was eighteen.”   
One mask taken off. Only about twenty more to go. My therapist sat back as if he had heard this all before. He squinted for a moment before placing his pen to his lips.   
“You told me that your first name was Noah but you never gave me a last name,” My therapist leaned back once more. “Why don’t you tell me that last name of yours.”  
“Hudson. Noah Hudson.”  
“My name is Lucifer...Lucifer Morningstar and I think both of us have a few masks to break through before I can let you go today.”


End file.
